(PUC Minas - 2007)THE KITE RUNNER As anyone who ha

(PUC Minas - 2007)

THE KITE RUNNER

        As anyone who has read the best-selling novel "The Kite Runner" knows, springtime in Kabul is announced by flocks of kites. But these aren't the kites of lazy weekend picnics. They are flying machines. The Afghan tendency for competition and gambling means that almost anything offers opportunity for a fight, from dogs to cocks, and even kites. The object of this cruel ballet is to slice your opponents' string with yours, sending the defeated paper jewel spiraling to the streets below. Packs of boys too poor to buy their own kites, race for it so that they too can enter the dispute. They are the kite runners.

        In a country where most success stories are haunted by failure, about the only thing going right these days is the kite making industry. One of the impulsive moves of the Taliban regime, along with the banning of music and the requirement that all men grow beards, was a total prohibition of kite flying. In the first days after the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, men shaved, music was played on car stereos and kites took to the air. For Noor Agha, Kabul's best kite maker, business has been soaring ever since.

        Agha has been feverishly at work producing hundreds of kites for use in China on the set of the highly anticipated adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner". Agha says he treats every kite he is making for the movie as a work of art, marking each with his name and signature scorpion image. Even though few of the kites will be used in competition, he incorporates in their manufacture the techniques he has developed through years of flying and fighting. "Making kites is my job," he says. "Fighting them is my disease."

(Adapted from: Time, February 22, 2007)

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